Mustafina: I’m considering myself a beginner in gymnastics right now

“I’m training at the Round Lake, according to the national team schedule. Of course, I’m not doing all the apparatuses yet because it’s very hard and, first of all, dangerous. And I’m considering myself a beginner right now. The kind that needs to learn almost everything from scratch. It’s hard to realize that I can’t do a lot of things now because I have to start gradually – this is the hardest. But the fact that coming back is hard, that I need to get back in shape – I wasn’t afraid of that, and, you could say, I’m trying to ignore it. If we’re talking about September, I’ve been home only for a few days, the rest of the time I spent at the training camp. I slept there, too, because it’s too far to commute, too hard, I wouldn’t be able to manage. So, on days off or half days, I’m going home.”

While Mustafina is training, her mom is taking care of her daughter:

“Actually, it isn’t hard for me to leave her at home because I’m leaving her with my mom and I know that I have nothing to worry about”.

Aliya tries not to think about whether she’ll be able to get to her past level and become the team leader again:

“I’m trying not to think about it because, I guess, I know how hard it is. But I’m trying not to think about it and just fill myself fully with the desire to come back”.

Emin Garibov told MatchTv that he wasn’t surprised that Mustafina came back, as she expressed her wish to return several times, but he is surprised with the amount of progress she was able to achieve in the past month:

“Currently she has started training again, and with such growing intensity that here I’m really surprised. Because she hasn’t lost almost anything, she only needs to get back in shape and that’s all. All the elements that she could do she can perform now, it’s just that in this case, we can’t hurry because it could affect her health negatively. Like, there’s a little bit of extra weight, there’s… Like, her mind remembers everything but her muscles are still resting, you could say.”